GoogleMail on Sony Ericsson K750i

I use Google A Tools to manage email for some of the domains I’m hosting. After spending a couple of years messing about with exim, courier-imap and squirrelmail (and then roundcube, which is rather nice, if bad) I decided that when I moved the server, I couldn’t be bothered setting it all up again and google was the easy way out.

One stoned evening, after not being near a net connection for a couple of days, I started suffering withdrawal, and ended up installing Opera Mini (which is surprisingly good), set up the account to allow IMAP and then tried to configure the phone. All I got was an error stating:

Encryption error, TLS/SSL unknown certificate authority

I spent a lot of time googling and got nowhere fast, in the end it turns out to be really simple; all you need to do is have the Thwate Premium Server CA Certificate installed. Easy

HowTo:
Gmail / GoogleMail on SonyEricsson K750i

Check for Web Access on your Mobile.

The first thing you need to do is make sure you can access the internet on your phone -and I mean the proper internet, not just for your mobile provider.

#2 in the menu is “Internet Services”. Select this and then [More] -> [Enter Address]. See if you can hit google.com or a website of your liking -if you have some bandwidth to burn you could download opera mini and have a play with that -its quite impressive.

At this point, if its working, you have the option of going to m.google.com and using their web based googlemail, or even their Java applet. NOTE: This only works with @gmail.com email addresses, not with [email protected]

-If at this point you find you can’t get on the internet, then you will have to get in contact with your network provider and get help. I am currently using GPRS on Vodafone Pre-Pay.

Configure Google Mail to allow IMAP.

Before you can access your google mail via IMAP you will need to enable it in your account settings.

Set up the email account on the handset.

Connect Using: Select the correct GPRS/GSM Account that you used to get on the internet in step 1.Protocol: IMAP4Incoming server: imap.googlemail.comIncoming port: 993Encryption: TLS/SSLMailbox: [email protected]Password: YourPasswordOutgoing Server: smtp.googlemail.comOutgoing Port: 465Email Address: [email protected]Download: Headers Only (much quicker)From Name: This is the name that will be displayed in the from address when you email someone else.Signature: Customise to your likingCopy Outgoing: can forward mail to another address. Set to off.Check Interval: 2 Hours -be warned, this can be expensive.

After setting up your email, if you enter into Messaging -> Email -> Inbox and select More -> Send and receve you should be rewarded with an error message stating:

Either its a case of finding them with the file browser, and one of the options you are given is “install”, or, try using BlueTooth to send the files to the phone, it should automatically prompt you to install them.

Thanks for good description. Especially information about certificates was valuable for me.
One thing to add: Install certificates using “Install Java Application” is required. I was using MyPhoneExplorer: http://www.fjsoft.at/en/

Wow -I’m amazed you’ve still got the phone, sadly I don’t have mine any more so I can’t say for certain, but:

If you look at the certificate from a webbrowser, you’ll see that the Signature Hash Algorithm is SHA512.
I’m not sure SHA512 actually existed when the phone was made; previously the world used MD5 and then SHA1. SHA1 isn’t due to be retired completely for a couple of years, but Google are very much leading the charge.

tldr: Technology moves on in the world, but not on older closed platforms. My guess is that the phone doesn’t understand SHA256 which is why you’re getting the error. Sorry